The "Good" Peeps

Michael Everett wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:Don't know if it'll be in a future book or not and I am now late for supper, so this will be VERY brief.

-=SNIP=-

That was brief!
RFC has just proven he can post less than 500 words!
In fact, that was barely over 280!
If we can get him to keep his posts short, that will hopefully mean that he can spend more time writing the books needed to feed our insatiable literary appetites.

Thanks, RFC!

That's

Michael Everett wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:Don't know if it'll be in a future book or not and I am now late for supper, so this will be VERY brief.

-=SNIP=-

That was brief!
RFC has just proven he can post less than 500 words!
In fact, that was barely over 280!
If we can get him to keep his posts short, that will hopefully mean that he can spend more time writing the books needed to feed our insatiable literary appetites.

Thanks, RFC!

silly,

Michael Everett wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:Don't know if it'll be in a future book or not and I am now late for supper, so this will be VERY brief.

-=SNIP=-

That was brief!
RFC has just proven he can post less than 500 words!
In fact, that was barely over 280!
If we can get him to keep his posts short, that will hopefully mean that he can spend more time writing the books needed to feed our insatiable literary appetites.

Thanks, RFC!

Michael.

runsforcelery wrote:...snip...

Michael.

Why do I get the impression someone is trying to qualify for Prime Minister.



Thanks for the laugh,
T2M

Haven's conquest seem to be more humane than conquests of the ancient world.

One gets the impression that systems conquered by Haven suffer a severe decrease in living standards and their political leadership tends to die or disappear. However; the vast majority of the people survive.

In contrast, people conquered by the Romans, the Egyptians, Asyrians, Babylonians, Chinese, and Aztecs could expect their men to suffer a near 100% fatality rate from being killed outright or subjected to harsh slavery. Male children might survive longer but with limited prospects of procreating. The women of the conquered people usually faired somewhat better as slaves and generally were allowed to procreate, but with the conquerers as sires.

Ancient conquests were unrestrained, Darwinian competitions for the survival of the fittest. What we would consider war crimes was perfectly normal, expected and grudgingly accepted.

The same dynamic applies to modern conquests but it is more subtle. The conquerers might not kill or enslave the men, but they do take liberties with the conquered women. WW-2 saw an entire cohort of French sired first by Germans then Americans. Quite a few Germans were sired by Americans and Russians at the conclusion of the war. A rather large percentage of
reproductive age, German women became war brides during the immediate aftermath of the war and subsequent occupation.

runsforcelery wrote:

isaac_newton wrote: SNIP

I have to say that I have some sympathy with Dr A, even given what RFC has said.

I'd point toward Amos Parnell and Eloise P in particular.

SNIP

I don't think that you can put Parnell and Pritchart in the same basket, for several reasons.

Let's look at Parnell first. Parnell was the senior uniformed officer of the Peoples Navy, a... SNIP

I trust you can see why I don't think that Parnell and Pritchart fit in the same pigeonhole either in their own lives or in the fashion in which they are regarded by their previous enemies.

Thanks for that RFC - most informative!

I hadn't meant to equate the two P's - so perhaps my original comment was not well worded - but on the other had, it got a good & interesting answer, so not too bad a mistake either

runsforcelery wrote:That's

runsforcelery wrote:silly,

runsforcelery wrote:Michael.

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I've just been trolled by RFC...
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My day has been made.
Thanks.

Michael Everett wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:That's

runsforcelery wrote:silly,

runsforcelery wrote:Michael.

.
..
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I've just been trolled by RFC...
...
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.



My day has been made.
Thanks.

Welcome to our very exclusive club!!

isaac_newton wrote:
I'd point toward Amos Parnell and Eloise P in particular.

Throughout the cannon, AP is seen as a good 'soldier' and a good man. However I'd recently re-read OBS and the prologue in particular and it rather struck me that he was clearly laying out how to conquer other systems large and small for the benefit of the Peeps, knowing full well what he was delivering those populations to and showing no particular remorse or regret.

This is the topmost soldier and right at the top of the Legislaterist tree... if not him then who else could have changed things.

I know that he paid a bitter price later on, but all sides seem to highly respect him even before that was known, and I can't quite see that's right.

This is an interesting topic as I've had fleeting thoughts here and there about the perspective of the sympathetic Havenite characters on the war in general. Most of them had to have joined knowing all too well what joining the Navy meant (i.e. that they would be participating in unprovoked wars of aggression to destroy and loot other societies). After all, Haven had been doing such wars of conquest for over half a century. I've always wondered how they viewed what the Navy and their star nation were doing. I never came down on any particular side (for example "they were following orders and keeping to their oaths of loyalty to their nation" vs "they made morally bad decisions and should be undermined because of that").

isaac_newton brought up an interesting point by mentioning Parnell. Parnell made some thought-provoking comments in EoH about his and the Navy's part in the DuQuesne Plan.

"And don't shed too many tears for the old regime."

Don't worry Amos, I don't

"But the old regime was rotten, too," he went on after a moment. "If it hadn't been, Pierre couldn't have pulled this off. Hell, Commander—all of us at the top knew the system was breaking down! We just didn't know how to fix it, and so we let the rot spread further and further, and in the end, Pierre dragged us all down for the kill. But we knew exactly what we were doing when we sent you and people like you out to conquer other star systems. Don't you ever think for a moment that we didn't. And to be honest about it, I don't really regret it now...It was the only way out for us, the only game we knew, and I'd be lying if I said we didn't take a certain pride in playing it as well as we possibly could."

We never really get as in-depth a viewpoint on the Havenite MO as we do here.

Never discount the power of effective propaganda self-deception.